Settling
by Completely Different
Summary: They may be teenagers. Half of their daemons may not even be settled yet. But that does NOT mean they're just side-kicks. (A Daemon AU of the YJ universe.)
1. Teamwork

**Author's Note:** This is technically a crossover between 'Young Justice' and 'His Dark Materials', but more accurately, this is a re-imagining of the YJ universe with daemons, and very little knowledge of the other series is needed to understand this story.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of daemons, let me briefly explain. Daemons are manifestations of the human soul in animal form. Daemons are closely linked with their human; except in very rare cases, another person cannot touch them, and being separated from one another causes extreme pain or death. As children, daemons can take on any animal form they so choose, but as people grow up, their daemon will eventually settle upon a form representative of that person's personality.

**Chapter 1: Teamwork**

Kaldur'ahm and his daemon are truly beginning to reconsider the decision to investigate the fire at Cadmus.

From the beginning they had been hesitant to go behind their mentors' backs. It was not a particularly respectful thing to do, even if they did believe them to be in the wrong on this occasion. Yet Kaldur had allowed himself to be swayed by his friends' arguments- that it would merely be aiding the over-worked Justice League, that it would be a simple reconnaissance mission, that it might finally prove to the their teachers the true extent of their skills.

More and more, that reasoning is beginning to seem truly foolish. This was not, and could not, be a simple reconnaissance mission. The secrets Cadmus Laboratories held were too great and too dangerous for that. Strange creatures- genomorphs- lurk around every corner, armed with a deadly array of supernatural abilities. The organization clearly has some kind of telepathic mind control at their disposal, one which has already grabbed the mind of at least one other hero. They are miles below ground and utterly surrounded. None of their allies know of their whereabouts.

"This is out of control. Perhaps...perhaps we should contact the League," Kaldur hazards.

His comrades' daemons are on too high alert to pay his words any mind, but Kid Flash and Robin themselves clearly have registered them. They both glance away. When the elevator they are riding reaches its destination moments later-__43 levels below ground__- Robin and Imza take off immediately. Kid Flash and Lolace, at least, both stop to share their opinion- now that they're here, they may as well investigate- but speed away before the Atlantean can say anything in response.

From his back-sling Genor says, "What choice do we have?"

Aqualad sighs. "None."

The young man and turtle daemon catch up with the others just in time to be attacked by a genomorphs. There's no time to discuss before a mind-controlled Guardian and a swarm of other creatures come from behind, and they're forced to run off again. Sooner or later they will have to fight, unless...

...unless they come across a reinforced metal door they can hind behind.

A door which is rapidly closing

Kid Flash, who had run ahead with his super speed, is on his knees next to a pair of toppled scientists, glancing between his friends and the closing doorway. His raccoon daemon, Lolace, shows no such hesitancy, immediately rushing to the set canisters standing in neat rows nearby. The canisters aren't large, but they're too heavy for her to handle herself. She hisses at her human; "A little help would be nice!"

The speedster clambers over, picks up the canister with both arms and hefts it towards the door. As he works to block it, Lolace speeds backwards and forwards nervously, a yellow blur in her suit. Even as Kid Flash urges them to hurry, Robin and Aqualad arrive. The first two side-kicks immediately dive through the door. Kaldur hesitates, then follows. Once he's through, he stands parallel to the door, letting Genor glance through to see how close their pursuers truly are. Kaldur has no choice but to kick the canister; the metal buckles, explodes outwards, and the door shuts with a loud __clang___, _green light switching to red.

"I've disabled the door," Robin explains from a computer terminal. "We're safe."

"We're trapped," Kaldur corrects, solemn. The chamber is dark. Impenetrable. The soldier allows himself a brief pang of longing for the open sea. Robin's expression remains unreadable behind the mask, but on his shoulder Imza flickers from bird shape to the warm, reassuring form of a squirrel.

That's when Kid Flash interrupts. "Uh, guys? You'll want to see this."

He presses buttons. A light flickers on, and for a moment they can all only stare, wide-eyed, at what it reveals.

Two large glass chambers. In one, a person. In the other, a dog. And though looking notably younger, both are instantly recognizable by the red symbol they wear.

Superman and Krypto.

oOo

__Awaken___, _a voice says in his head, and Wally does.

It's a terrible, invasive feeling, and it sets him struggling immediately. The movement causes pain to explode- his whole body is battered and bruised, clearly having suffered one of the worst beatings of his life. Its no use, anyway; both his legs and arms are bound tight by metal restraints, no give at all. A quick glance shows that he's not the only one. Aqualad and Robin are in the same positions. Imza must be in that small, opaque black box on the ground, one designed to prevent the escape of unsettled daemons. His own raccoon needs no such precautions, and instead has been placed in a larger cage nearby, though she gets the bonus of electronic shackles around her clever forepaws. Genor doesn't get either, their captors having merely left him lying upside down on the back of his shell. Through the fear and rage Wally feels a brief burst of anger on Kaldur's behalf, for having to see his sea-turtle daemon disrespected like that.

He's getting over the disorientation now, and the memories are all flooding back. He remembers Cadmus, the creepy genomorph things, the Superman clone. The Superman clone which, apparently, has zero of the original's morals, and is basically an unstoppable juggernaut of pain.

The Superman clone which, by the by, is standing just a couple feet in front of him. __Staring__.

He wishes desperately that Lolace, at least, was free, instead of caged, shackled and kept just at the edge of their range. Even if she couldn't get him out, it would be so nice to feel her fur against his skin.

She'd probably say something like, "_what would really be nice is if we could __**_actually_**__vibrate our molecules through solid matter,_" but then, she's always been the practical one of the pair. That's why she's keeping her muzzle shut while __he's __the one yelling his mouth off at the evil clone that got them into this mess in the first place.

"What do you want?!" he yells. Not-Superman and Not-Kypto just stand there, utterly still, eyes locked onto him. "Quit staring! You're freaking me out!"

Robin tells him to stop antagonizing the guy with eye-beams, which,__yeah__, fair point, but it's not like things could get much worse.

"We only sought to help you," Aqualad tells super-clone.

"Yeah, we free you, and you turn on us. How's that for gratitude?"

"Kid, please," Kaldur interrupts. "Be quiet now."

Then Genor says, "I believe our new friend was not in full control of his actions."

Genor doesn't eve __seem__to see the irony of saying that while he's rocking back on forth on his shell, unable to do anything more than flail his flippers helplessly. (Is the term irony? Wally's not sure. English class isn't really his strength).

The clone opens his mouth, says something indecipherable, grunts, then tries again. "What if I wasn't?"

Wally gapes. "He can talk?"

"Yes, __we can__," the large white dog daemon next to him says, baring her teeth.

After a glance to his friends, Wally figures he should be going into placation mode. "It's not like I said 'it'."

oOo

It's it the sloppiest escape Robin has made in years.

It took a painfully long time for him to manage to cut through the restraints with the electric file hidden in his sleeve, and even then, he still probably wouldn't have managed to escape if Superboy hadn't had a change of heart strong enough to cut through the telepathic control and busted them out.

Once out of his pod, the first thing Robin does is find the correct controls to open the latches of KF's and Aqualad's pods. He orders Superboy to go help them get down (an order which his daemon does __not__take kindly), then moves to find the correct sequence to unlock their daemons. His heart soars when he does so; Imza comes gliding out, chirping wildly, and by the time she reaches him she's an hanuman monkey, perfectly shaped to wrap him in a hug. It's never comfortable to be forcibly kept apart from your daemon, and even more so when you can't see one another.

There's not a lot of time for chit-chat, but Robin can't help but ask in a low voice, "You okay? That box was pretty small."

"Fine," she whispers back. "I just turned into a beetle. At that size, it was practically the Batcave."

She's shivering a little, so he knows she's lying, but its only a small lie. He grins.

The super-clone is still freeing the others, but his daemon is watching them, ears pulled back. "I hate monkeys," she says, and it's nearly a snarl.

Robin really wants to tell her to deal with it, but that wouldn't exactly be helpful, so he just ignores the comment. Imza does the same, quickly making her way past the dog to Genor, who's still lying on his back. She flips him right side up just as Aqualad lands beside him. Lolace snuffles Wally protectively while Imza helps Genor into his back-sling. (Robin has often wondered why bad guys never bother to steal their gear when they're unconscious. Aqualad would be _so_ less effective if he had to carry his daemon in his arms).

As soon as its clear that everyone is in two pieces they take off, Robin only sparing a couple seconds to throw back a couple birdarangs and destroy that rather delicate apparatus the villains have going on there.

Things get...tough, after that. Dozens of more genomorphs come out of the very walls; these ones being huge, monstrous, troll-like things that rival even Superboy in strength. Fighting them all would be a terrible idea, and for a moment it looks like Supey is going to just that- but thankfully, he and his dog are just holding them off long enough to clear a path to the elevator. Robin shoots a grappling hook up the shaft, and once Kid Flash grips his shoulders, the two of them going soaring up; Izma, meanwhile, turns into an eagle, and grips Lolace by the back of her uniform to follow. There are horrible grunting and crashing sounds from below, but when he glances back, his companions are fine. Aqualad's arm is slung around Superboy's shoulders, and both him and his dog have leapt into the air; within seconds they've even managed to speed past them, just narrowly avoiding Izma's wings.

Except, after a second, they're not flying at all; they're __falling__.

Robin shoots another grappling hook down, and Aqualad manages to catch it; but there's no-one, __no-one __to grab Superboy's daemon. Instead, she's going to keep falling- falling long past her range-__nobody can survive that kind of separation___-_

But then, something happens. As the giant white dog falls, whining, one of her flailing paws catch one of the bars lining the shaft- and then, all of a sudden, it's not a paw at all, but a __hand__. A large, hairy, orange hand. And connected to it isn't a dog at all, but an orangutan.

Both clone and daemon look too stunned to think. Superboy appears to be muttering about his surprising inability to fly, while the now-orangutan is staring at her hand in mute horror.

Kid Flash consoles Superboy on the whole 'not flying' thing, but they've got bigger problems- the elevator is approaching from above, and fast.

"Guys, this will have to be our exit," Robin shouts.

The others jolt into action, but Superboy's poor daemon is just hanging onto the wall in orangutan form, looking utterly lost. If she stays there, she'll be a pancake "Yo!" Lolace yells up at him. "You're unsettled. Go bird!"

For a terrible millisecond, Robin's afraid that the daemon won't- but then, suddenly, she's a falcon, and her powerful wings are carrying her to the same exit that Superboy is in the process of ripping apart.

There's a chase after that, followed by a trip in the good old air-vent. They have to pause, momentarily, to remind Superboy's daemon to take something that crawls better than a falcon (she goes for a snake, following Izma's lead), and even then, they're stuck at a painfully slow crawl. Thankfully, the goons that run the place were too arrogant to realize he'd hacked the motion censors, so they lose their pursuers without much difficulty. They drop out of the vent, Superboy's daemon returning to the dog-shape so similar to Krypto's, Izma taking wing as the robin which is her human's namesake.

After that there's more running, a whole bunch of stairs- all good, all good- then there's warning lights and giant lock-out doors, not good, but manageable-

-and __then__there's dozens upon dozens of genomorphs, blocking off every escape path. No where to run. No way to fight.

No __chance__to fight. All the creatures' horns begin to glow, and Robin can do nothing as he feels a telepathic presence press against his mind. His body sags, collapses, Izma crashes to the ground beside him, and finally, consciousness is pulled from their grasp.

oOo

Superboy falls to the ground. His arms feel like lead- no, like something far, far heavier. His daemons paws are planted on the ground. Neither can move.

And yet- they are not unconscious. Not like the others. Why?

__Perhaps for the sake of our fellow genomorphs, our brother Superboy should make up his own mind.__

The sensation- the presence of something else, some__one __else, in his mind- is familiar. Familiar, and after his brief taste of freedom, __cloying__.

However, it does not seem to press against his thoughts, not like it did before. He can still feel himself. He stares at the genomorph standing in front of him- taller, lankier, more humanoid than any of the others. A name suddenly fills his head: Dubbilex.

_I___t was you?__he asks.

__Yes___, _Dubbilex agrees. The genomorph explains. Explains how he orchestrated all of this; the fire, the discovery, their continued survival. When Superboy asks why, he says:

__Because you our are hope. The genomorph hero. You will blaze a trail for all our brothers, showing us the way to freedom.__

The other are waking- or rather, being allowed to wake. The genomorph's attention, however, does not waver from Superboy and his daemon. __What is your choice, brother, sister?__

Cadmus created him. Cadmus taught him everything. Cadmus kept him safe. That's what he's been told. But as his daemon swishes her tail angrily, he realizes that its not what he __believes__. They created him, but only as a weapon, and now they wish to imprison him. They wish to deny him of anything he could want, even his own thoughts.

These genomorphs want a hero. Somebody to save them. Perhaps, one day, he will. But it is not for their sakes' Superboy is thinking about when his daemon opens her muzzle and says, "We choose __freedom__."

It causes a flare of emotion in his chest, something sweet and bright and beautiful.

The emotion is short-lived, for just moments later the scientist, Desmond and his gecko daemon, the one who has kept them trapped here, appears. He rants, and raves, and before anybody can think to stop him, he downs a clear vial filled with some sort of chemical. Immediately his body begins to bulge and stretch, horribly enlarged muscles erupting like tumours, breaking through the skin itself.

Superboy does not have many memories, but his mind is filled with many things. And he is sure that there is __nothing__in head as disgusting as the scientist's skin falling away.

He is proven wrong the moment he notices Desmond's daemon.

The gecko had been curled around the man's neck, and as the neck had expanded, the daemon had__sunk into__the flesh, its yellow scales turning dull grey to match. With his razor sharp eyesight, Superboy is able to see the painful detail as the gecko's digits loose their distinction, then entire limbs and tail, then body itself. Within seconds the daemon is just an oddly shaped lump on Desmond's neck with two dots for eyes; eventually even those are consumed. And then the daemon's...gone.

It's...horrifying. Wrong. Superboy and the others can only stare.

It's his daemon who cuts through their astonishment and makes the first move, jumping towards the creature (for surely, that's __all__it is now), and digging her teeth into its flesh. Superboy follows her with a punch to the goliath's face. The creature which was once Desmond screams, and with a single flail of one mighty arm, flings Superboy to the ground. The clone hardly feels it, and a second later, jumps high above the mutated monster's face. The monster sees the opening, and uses it a chance to punch him in the gut, propelling him straight through the ceiling.

For a moment there's this terrible tugging, then a __tearing__, as if he can feel something- as if he can feel __her__- being pulled right out of him. But then she must jump to follow, because it's alright, and the pain lessens, even if it leaves him grasping for breath in a way that that being thrown through three floors to land heavily on the ground does not.

The subsequent battle is...difficult. The warped being that Desmond has become is truly strong, having sacrificed all its intelligent for brute strength. In one sense, they have some advantage in the fact that their daemons can attack the creature directly- Desmond is no longer a true person, and so daemons do not need to avoid his touch; in practice, however, it just means that the humans have to be even more careful not to accidentally bump into another's daemon in the melee.

(That is something Superboy knows, as well as he knows the beauty of the sun-__that one must never touch another's daemon__.)

Superboy punches, and punches, and punches, his daemon clawing, biting and tearing. If they get flung off, they simply shake away the damage and jump back into the fray. The fast one, which his memory banks tell him is called Kid Flash, weaves in and out, only occasionally landing a punch, and avoiding being hit himself; he is not always successful. The one called Aqualad fights not just with his muscles, but with magic, summoning large whips of glowing water which Desmond hardly seems to feel. At one point the monster nearly manages to beat Aqualad straight into a pillar, forcing Superboy to come to his rescue. The little one (Robin), stays out of reach for the most part, throwing all manner of projectiles. It's the boy's daemon which does all the close range fighting, flickering from shape to shape with dizzying speed- one moment a cat, another a bird, the next a cockroach, then an ox. If he wasn't so busy being pummelled, Superboy thinks he might feel ill watching it- he could never imagine his daemon own switching from form to form so easily.

(He can still scarcely imagine his daemon being anything but a large white dog; that's what she's __meant__to be. The fact that she's unsettled just seems __wrong__, almost as wrong as his inability to fly).

There's this glorious joy in being able to let loose. He has spent his entire life asleep. In a pod. And now, for the first time, he and his daemon are discovering just what they are capable of. It feels amazing.

It's also, he realizes, not enough.

They are strong, but the creature which was Desmond is stronger. He will keep fighting, and fighting, and fighting. Superboy could keep fighting, too, he thinks, but he doesn't want to- he's getting tired. And the others, Robin and Aqualad and Kid Flash, they are even more exhausted, and by this point, severely hurt. Desmond could kill them, and Superboy realizes that he doesn't want that.

But while the other three may be weak, they are clever. While Superboy is still busy fighting, Robin comes up with a plan, a way of defeating the monster and escaping at the same time. They can provoke Desmond into weakening the supporting pillars, and bring the building down on top of them.

It's mathematics, and architecture, and tactics, and all these other things which Superboy knows about in his head but doesn't know how to do, but it all comes so naturally to these heroes.

Their plan goes well. Kid Flash antagonizes the monster into attacking each pillar; Robin marks key points; Aqualad makes the floor slick with water and ice. Superboy and his daemon provide the muscle, pummelling Desmond into the ground, long enough for him to be electrified and for Robin to plant explosives in each pillar. Then the boy is shouting for the to __move__, and there is a high-pitched whining, and then a roaring, both from the explosion and the monster, and Superboy moves on instinct, jumping on top of the the humans, trying to protect them as the building crashes down around them...

Superboy punches his way out of the rubble, his daemon lifting a large slab of concrete on her back. The others follow behind him, breathing heavily. Out of the corner of his eye, Superboy spots the little raccoon, clad in yellow, scramble up the debris, while a tiny little cockroach climbs up Robin's leg.

His attention isn't on any of that, however. Instead, he's breathing in the cold air, filled with dust but still so much sharper than anything he's breathed before. He feels a breeze against his face, sees how it gently tugs at his daemon's thick white fur. They're outside. For the first time in their lives, they are __outside__.

Together, they go to look at the unconscious form of Desmond, unsure of what to make of the huge, hulking figure that was once a scientist. Before they can think much about it, however, a voice interrupts them, and Kid Flash says, "See? The moon."

The two of them stare up at the sky. The moon hangs there, more beautiful than either of them could have ever imagined.

And then Superman and Krypto appears.

It seems as though they have appeared from the moon itself, though of course that is only a trick of perspective. Superboy stands straighter, and his daemon pricks her ears. Their eyes are locked on the pair descending towards them; blue suit, red cape, white fur, and the symbol, the same one they themselves wear. Even as the rest of the Justice League arrives, in their many colourful costumes, with daemons in a dozen forms, from dogs to doves, from peagsi to puma, they cannot pull their gaze away.

It becomes apparent however, moments later, that Superman and his daemon __can__.


	2. Adjustments

**Chapter Two: Adjustments**

Robin and Izma are bracing themselves as they arrive in the Batcave. They don't regret what they did tonight, but now the thrill of victory has worn off and they're painfully aware of the lecture- and punishment- awaiting them.

Not immediately, though. When they step out of the zeta-beam they find Alfred waiting there to greet them. The butler's face is blank as always, but one can see a slight wag in his terrier daemon's tail.

"Master Bruce, Master Richard, both alive, I see," Alfred comments.

"Although, I notice the same cannot be said for Robin's uniform," the terrier tuts. Izma dives down from her perch on Dick's shoulder, taking the shape of a rather scrappy looking puppy. The two dogs touch noses, and Izma continues to nudge the older daemon playfully, Airdelle doing her best to look stoic in response.

Alfred's worried- more worried than he usually is. Clearly Bats must have told him they'd run off, but not informed him that they were safe and in two pieces. So Dick shoots him a cocky smile and says, "You should have seen the other guy."

Beneath his moustache, Alfred's mouth twitches into a smile.

Batman, meanwhile, is being as solid and stoic as usual- maybe even moreso. Dick kind of has to wonder if he's being given the silent treatment. All Batman does is nod at Alfred before striding off as he pulls away his mask and gloves. It seems like he's going to disappear into the Batcave without so much as word to them, but then his daemon appears on his shoulder. "Check Dick over for injuries," the sugar-glider orders. "Get him patched up, but have him and Izma talk to us before going to bed."

Alfred nods, but the little daemon has already vanished back into the darkness of Batman's cloak.

Dick just rolls his eyes and turns towards the cave's medical centre, with Alfred, Airdelle and Izma following.

"I saw you on the news today," Alfred comments as they walk.

"Oh?" It's all Dick can say. Already the Hall of Justice feels like it was so long ago; so much has happened since.

"It was very impressive," continues the butler. "There was a nice little montage of you and your friends' work."

"Sounds cool," Izma says, though she doesn't sound particularly enthused. By then they've arrived at the pair of padded benches that sit in the cave's medical area. At that moment, Dick would like nothing more than to lie down on one and fall asleep, but that's not an option. Instead, he begins to peel off the tattered remains of his uniform, wincing despite himself at the pain caused by moving his arm.

Immediately Alfred is at his side to help. It's not _really _necessary. He's not in so much pain that he can't do it himself, and if push came to shove, Izma could turn into a primate and use her own nimble fingers. Still, Dick allows Alfred to do take over. It's nice, sometimes, to have someone fuss over him.

The two daemons, both in dog form, settle onto the ground and cuddle close together. As Alfred begins to pull off the boy's gloves, he says, "However, we were wondering why, after all that pomp and circumstance, you and your friends would be seized by the sudden urge to run off on a dangerous mission, all on your own, without telling a single soul what you were about to do."

Dick stiffens, and it has nothing to do with the painful bruises on his hands. It's a moment or two before he asks, in a soft voice, "Did you know that the Justice League has a secret orbiting watch-tower?"

"Yes."

Both boy and Izma bristle a little at the total calm in the elder man's voice, but Alfred continues before either of them can actually interrupt. "I'm honestly a bit surprised you hadn't found that information out yourself with you, ahem, hacking skills."

"I wouldn't do that!" Dick protests. And he __wouldn't__. Sure, Izma has dared him, once or twice, to go and look at all of Batman's super restricted files, and while he had busted in once or twice, it was just to prove he __could__. He hadn't actually __read__any of them. "I figured if Batman had the stuff off limits, he had a good reason."

Alfred raises an eyebrow, and Airdelle asks, "And you don't think he has one in this case?"

"Well," Robin begins, and then stops. Batman always has a reason. __Always__.

Izma, however, cries, "It doesn't matter! We're his __partners__." She gets up and stalks around the humans as Alfred gets to work removing the torso region of the Robin outfit. "He's meant to __trust___ us_."

"He does trust you," Airdelle insists. "Do you think he would allow you to be Robin, if he did not? But it's not just his trust which matters, but the Justice League's."

He supposes that's true enough. While Wonder Woman has always been perfectly cordial whenever they've met, he knows for a fact that Diana does not approve of Batman having someone so young as a partner, and that Superman has expressed similar doubts. It's very possible that the other members of the League, the ones who don't have proteges of their own, feel similar. (And that's not even talking about politicians and the world media, who can be a critical bunch).

And trust is important, in the super-hero gig. Robin __knows__he's good. Great, even. And he knows that his friends are good, too. But if the rest of the League isn't convinced- well, official member or not, they'd still consider him a kid. A liability. Something to protect. And next thing you know, when they're out of the field, instead of keeping themselves focused on the mission they'd be looking out for him, or KF, or Speedy. That's how people end up dead.

So, yeah. He gets it.

"He still should have told us about the Watch-tower," Izma huffs.

"Perhaps he was afraid you two would do something irresponsible," the terrier suggests in a perfectly dry voice. By that point Dick's shirtless, giving a clear view to the rather impressive collection of new injuries he's managed to collect that night, so he can't really protest.

Alfred doesn't comment as much, and instead grabs an armful of bandages and antiseptic creams from the large medicine cabinet. As he sets to work disinfecting the scratches, he asks Dick for his own opinion on the severity of the injuries. The gymnasts says they all seem fairly superficial. "A couple of my ribs are sore, but I think that's just bruising, nothing broken."

"I suppose you would know best," Alfred says, face and tone perfectly even.

They can __still __feel the judgement lurking just under the surface.

"Look," Dick says. "I know what I did was kind of stupid. But we survived, and we did some serious good, okay?"

"I don't doubt it. But you will convince no one of your maturity if you take undue risks."

Dick presses his lips together, looking forward, saying nothing. Even Izma is silent, lying on the ground. They don't say anything else as Alfred finishes cleaning and bandaging their injuries. Neither the butler nor his daemon tries to prod them into speaking, or further defending themselves.

Instead, once the wounds are dressed, Alfred merely makes his way back to the cabinet, puts the materials away, and retrieves the spare pair of pajamas always kept in the cave. He lays them on the bench besides Dick, gives the boy's good shoulder a gentle squeeze, and heads off carrying the remains of the tattered Robin uniform.

Before he moves to follow, Airdelle pauses. "Go and speak with Master Bruce. We'll have a snack waiting for you upstairs once you're finished. Then it's straight to bed."

oOo

Superboy stands on the porch steps, trying not to feel apprehensive as Kid Flash jangles the keys in the lock.

No, not Kid Flash. They told him to call the boy Wally, at least when he's dressed in 'civvies', or when they are with trusted allies. Similarly, the tall, blonde man next to him is not currently the Flash, but Barry.

The door opens, and Superboy is ushered in, his daemon trotting at his heels. He's still wearing the white jumpsuit, emblazoned with the Superman symbol, and they don't want any of the neighbours to notice the odd attire.

"You're home!" a voice calls from inside the house, and a moment later a middle-aged woman appears, an otter at her side.

"Mom?" Wally says. "I thought you were at a party!"

"I was, dear, but when your uncle called, I just had to come home," she says. "You father decided to stay a little longer, but he'll be along shortly, I'm sure."

"Mary, you didn't have to-"

"Nonsense," the woman says, cutting off Barry. She comes to stand in front of Superboy. She's smiling. "Now, I didn't hear much, besides the fact that you need a place to stay. You can call me Mary, or Mrs. West, if you prefer."

She holds out her hand, and Superboy knows he's meant to shake it. He does, making sure he doesn't grip her hand too tightly. "I'm Superboy," he tells her.

The woman smiles, nods. There's a silence. There's a look on her face, like she's expecting something more, but he's not sure what. Eventually, the otter at the woman's feet says, "Oh, and I'm Kirah." The daemon stands on his hind legs to touch noses with his daemon, then asks, "What's your name?"

His daemon looks down at the otter, then says, "I don't have one."

"Oh," the otter says.

He can feel movement behind him, and hear Barry mutter in a low voice, "_They didn't even..._"

But then Wally is at his side, tugging his arm, pulling him forward. "Come on," he says, and his voice cheerful, but kind of fake, Superboy thinks. "I'm starved. We got anything to eat?"

The woman laughs. "Of course we do! When I told everyone at the party that the two of you spent all night working on a big project, they wouldn't let me leave without weighing me down with barbecue and salad..."

They're lead into a kitchen, and Superboy takes a seat at the table. The three humans run around the room, the two speedsters literal blurs, and in a few minutes there are all sorts of plates sitting in front of him. He recognizes all the foods instantly- hots dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, corn- but he's unprepared for it in real life. The smell is amazing, and makes his mouth fill with saliva. Suddenly, he becomes aware of a low sort of pain in his stomach. Hunger, he notes.

His daemon stands at the side of the room, unsure of what to do, before Wally's raccoon daemon comes over and prods her gently towards Superboy's chair. "You can just chill there," the raccoon tells her. "Oh, by the way, I never told you...my name's Lolace."

So many names. At least each daemon only has one, not like the people, who all seem to have two or three each.

Food is amazing. The genomorphs filled his mind with many things, but mostly words, images and concepts. He knows what taste is, but he's never experienced it, and the flavour of all the food is so overwhelming. To help steady him, his daemon presses her head against his leg as he eats his first hamburger, and marvels at how everyone else manages to gulp theirs down so quickly.

He takes much longer than everyone else to finish, even though the speedsters eat far more than him. When she's done, the woman Mary gets up, saying she's going to go get a sleeping bag set-up in Wally's room, and maybe find some spare sleeping clothes that will fit. Wally and Barry sit for a while, and just talk a bit, about nothing particularly important it seems. Superboy doesn't say anything, just chews.

"Ugh, I need a shower," Wally says, once Superboy is done eating. "You do too," he adds, pointing towards Superboy, and then his faces scrunches up in a weird way. "Er, do you know how to shower? And how to go to the toilet, and, uh...stuff?"

"_Yes_," his daemon tells him, a hint of growl in her voice. Superboy rests a hand on her head, even though he's annoyed, too. The genomorphs taught him basic hygiene.

Barry face crinkles into a small, strange smile. He says, "Looks like you can handle things from here."

"Yeah," Wally agrees.

"I'll be heading off then," he states. He nods at Superboy, and begins to head out of the room.

"Barry- wait-" says Lolace, and both Barry and his hare daemon stop. "I'm sorry. Y'know. About today."

"I know," is Barry's reply.

"And we're sorry, too," the brown hare says. She hops over the raccoon, and the two of them rub their faces together, Lolace wrapping her arms around the hare and giving a tight squeeze. Then they break away, and Barry leaves without another word.

Wally shows him to the bathroom, teaches him how to adjust the water temperature, and points him towards the spare towels. Lolace says that it can take __forever__to clean and dry dog fur, and that it might be easier if his daemon just turns into a lizard or something. "We'll give you guys some privacy," Wally eventually says, and they leave.

Superboy and his daemon stare after the door for a long moment. Then they strip off their clothes, leaving the tattered white jumpsuit and the red collar, both bearing the Superman shield, on the tiled floor.

The Kryptonian sticks a cautious hand under the shower, feeling the hot spray of water against his skin. It feels perfectly comfortable, but then, he's resistant to a much wider range of temperatures than humans. He steps into the shower, and his daemon follows, though it's not as easy for her four paws to make it over the rim of the bathtub. She takes up an awful lot of the bath, and her fur quickly becomes dark and heavy from the water. After a while, his daemon takes Lolace's advice, and transforms herself into an iguana. She is less furry this way, smaller, and easier to clean- but Superboy much prefers her dog form.

He inspects the bottles sitting on a shelf in the shower, and finds the one marked shampoo. He squeezes the soapy liquid out, surprised by the sharp scent, and rubs it into his dark hair. As he does so, he asks, "Do you want a name?"

His daemon is silent for a moment, and eventually says, "I don't know."

"All the other daemons have names."

"I know."

"You should have one, too."

"Maybe," she says, but there's no real enthusiasm in her voice at all. "But what name would I have? Krypto?"

Superboy's hands curl into fists, and he lets the water run over his body.

Down on the smooth bathtub floor his daemon whispers, "They didn't even want to talk to us."

"I know," Superboy whispers back. He remembers it all too clearly. The way Superman's eyes had gone wide with shock when he'd recognized the shield on his chest. The way Kypto's ears had laid flat on the back of her head when Superboy had proudly announced who he was. The way all the Justice League members had broken off into groups to__discuss__him, how they'd spoken in whispers that his sharp ears had heard perfectly. How Superman hadn't even been able to look him in the eye, how the hero had just stumbled his way through a painfully short conversation, then flown away at the first opportunity. How Krytpo hadn't wagged her tail, not even once.

It makes his chest feel hard and tight. He was made in Superman's image, to reflect all that is good and right about the hero- and Superman can't __stand __him.

But maybe he deserves this. After all, he can't even fly.

"I don't need a name," his daemon decides. "I know who I am. I'm your daemon. That's enough."

Maybe.

They finish their shower. Superboy puts on the sleeping clothes Mary found for him. They are strange, and soft, and a little too large for him, and nothing like the jumpsuit he's always worn. Once she's dry, his daemon transforms back into the form of a beautiful white dog, and Superboy carefully places the collar back around her neck. He folds up the jumpsuit, too, and carries it in his arms.

They are shown to Wally's room. Wally tells Superboy that he can have the bed, and that he doesn't need to wait for him and Lolace to finish their own shower if they want to go to sleep right away. Superboy crawls underneath the covers, and then his daemon jumps up beside him. They lay there, and close their eyes, but do not sleep. Later, Wally comes back in, and flicks a switch which turns off the lights. That should help, Superboy thinks. The darkness reminds him of his pod back in Cadmus, and it clearly helps Wally, because just minutes later, both he and his raccoon daemon are snoring gently from the sleeping bag on the floor below. Both clone and dog, however, remain stubbornly awake.

He can hear the occasional explosion from outside. Fireworks, Superboy thinks. Tiny little explosions of light that people like to watch on holidays and celebrations. There were never any fireworks in his pod at Cadmus. It was always quiet- no sound but a distant electrical hum, and the quiet chitter of the genomorphs.

He doesn't like lying down. It feels strange.

Eventually, Superboy gets out of the the bed, his daemon padding silently after. He makes his way into the closet, and buries himself in the hanging jackets and sweaters. He makes sure his daemon is fully inside before shutting the door.

He falls asleep upright, his dog leaning against his legs.

Once Dick is fully dressed in his pyjamas and socks, he makes his way towards the central computer hub. Bruce is there, his figure just a dark silhouette against the bright light of the monitors. Except right now, he's not Bruce, but all Batman, even if the mask is off.

Izma's shape flickers from dog to robin, and she flies up to perch on Dick's shoulder. It helps him stand a little straighter, giving him the same reassurance as his costume.

Batman's staring straight ahead, eyes locked on the screen, pretending not to notice them. Batman has, of course, __actually__failed to notice either him or Alfred on occasion, when he's been so engrossed in his work that he forgets all about the outside world, but this time Dick can tell it's just an act. On his shoulder, a little difficult to see against the bright light, is the little lump which is actually the man's daemon. From the shape's profile, he can tell that the sugar-glider isn't reading the screens herself, but facing the opposite direction, watching the approaching pair.

Watching, but not acknowledging.

Izma's in no mood to play the waiting game. "Batman," she chirps.

"Yes?" he says gruffly, not turning around and continuing to type.

Great. He's trying to make Dick walk into his __own __lecture. Well, he's not falling for it. He crosses his arms and says, "You wanted to talk to us?"

The lump on his shoulder shifts, and Pappani says "We want to hear what __you__have to say."

That's Pappani, through and through. She'll never just tell you something, not if she can make _y___ou __tell _her_.

People rarely sit down and just discuss what a person's daemon means. It's considered rather rude, intrusive. Children learn how to interpret another's daemon in the same way they learn how to read facial expressions and social cues; it usually just develops naturally.

When it came to his own daemon, Bruce had taken a more direct approach.

About a week after Dick had stumbled across the Batcave cleverly hidden inside a grandfather clock, and the big secret had been revealed, Bruce had caught him and Izma down there. Dick had had a dark grey blanket tied around his neck like a cloak, his daemon in sugar-glider form, the two of them trying to make threatening expressions at one another. (They weren't very successful).

They had thought they were completely alone, so it was quite a start when Dick had suddenly felt a hand tap his shoulder. Izma had been so shocked that she had jumped a good foot in the air.

In the grand scheme of things, sneaking up on an inattentive eight year-old and his daemon was not even close to being on the list of 'Most Impressive Things Batman Has Ever Done', but to little Dick, it most certainly was. While Izma had glided down to the ground and transformed self-consciously into a squirrel, the little boy had stared up at the man with wide eyes.

He had been scared and nervous, still more than a little wary of the man who was now his guardian, and even more embarrassed at having been caught pretending to __be __him. To his surprise, however, Bruce Wayne had been wearing an expression of amusement- something which Dick had not yet seen once in his entire two __months __of living at the manor.

The one who spoke next, however, was not Bruce, but Pappani. The daemon had stared at them with dark, solemn eyes and said, "You want to know why."

Boy and his daemon had blinked. "...why?" echoed Izma.

"Why a sugar-glider," the daemon had clarified.

Dick had stammered, surprised and embarrassed by the forwardness, but Izma hadn't been about to let such an opportunity go to waste. "Yes," she had said, simply.

"People look at me, and they think that I'm sweet, cute and harmless. That's good."

"...it is?"

"Sometimes, it helps to seem like something you're not," Bruce had explained. "You're too young to know this, Dick, but most people do not have a very high view of me. Bruce Wayne, that is. They think I'm rather...silly. Vapid. That I spend all my time wasting money and partying. Pappani's form fits into that image. People even think the fact that's she's a nocturnal species means that we just enjoy the night life."

Pappani had snorted (it was unbearably cute). "They're not __wrong__."

"Okay..." Dick had said. "That makes sense."

Izma, however, was not so satisfied. "Right. But..."

"...but?" prompted Pappani, after the younger daemon had trailed off.

"...how do you__fight__?"

Pappani's nose had twitched, and then she had said, with considerable satisfaction, "I __don't___._"

"_What_?" Dick and Izma had blurted at the same time.

"In a fight, I'm not much use," the daemon had admitted. "I'm small, my claws are tiny, and my teeth are designed for bark and bugs. So I just hide in various secret pouches in our suit."

"But- but- the other people's daemons..."

"They don't __matter__," Pappani had stressed. And then both she and Bruce had stared at them, silently challenging them to __think__, to work it out for themselves.

"...because a daemon can never touch another person," Dick had realized suddenly. "If you just stay hidden, out of their grasp, they can't attack you!"

The expression on Bruce's face had been so __proud__.

Izma, however, had been more than a little disappointed. "So...that's it? You don't do __anything__?"

"Now, I never said _that_," Pappani had pointed out. She had opened her mouth to explain, then hesitated, and instead said, "Would you like to try something?"

Unsure of what to expect, Dick and Izma had simply exchanged glances, and said, "Okay."

"Turn into something suited for the dark," Pappani had ordered them, and after a moment of deliberation Izma had turned into an elf owl, her sharp talons digging into Dick's shoulder. They had waited for more instructions, but instead, Bruce had slipped his hand into a pocket, pressed something...

...and the cave had plunged into pure darkness.

Dick had started, and stifled a small shriek, not wanting to seem cowardly in front of the hero.

"I can't __see___,"_ Dick had instead complained, trying to make it seem like he was nothing but mildly annoyed. Izma had run her beak through his hair, comforting him.

"But you can, Izma?" asked Pappani.

"Well, yeah," his daemon had said, with a ruffle of her feathers. "But that's because I'm an owl. That doesn't help Dick."

"You and Dick are two parts of a single whole," Bruce had said then. His voice had been deep and booming in the dark, much more like the masked vigilante than the billionaire playboy. "Anything one of you sees, or senses, so can the other. If you learn how to __focus___,_you can enter what is known as four-eyes."

"Is...is that what you two do?"

"Yes," Pappani had said. "Batman can smell the faintest of scents, hear the quietest of sounds, see in the darkest night- all because of me."

"Try it," Bruce had prompted. "Keep calm, take deep breaths. You want to focus on each other..."

The two of them, boy and daemon, had listened keenly to the Batman's instructions, but it hadn't seemed to work very well. Dick had started to feel rather silly, just standing there, __breathing___. _It had felt like he was more likely to fall asleep than to start seeing through Izma's eyes...

...but then- well, it could have just been his eyes adjusting, but Dick had been certain that the darkness wasn't quite as dark as it had been before, as if he could make out the vague shape of Bruce in front of him. And had he begun to hear the distant sound of bats?

That had been his first ever lecture and lesson from the Dark Knight, and it had set the stage for every one he had received since.

Turning his mind back towards the current conversation, Dick considers his next words. He knows that whatever he says will be a big influence on Batman's decision to allow him to continue to work with the other young heroes. He could apologize for their actions- but he's not feeling particularly apologetic, so it'll just come across as false. On the other hand, he could rant and rave, which would be rather cathartic, but he knows from experience that rarely goes anywhere.

Instead, he crosses his arms. "I've already said all I have to say."

"And you have nothing to add?" asks Pappani. She can never manage the same dark growl as her human, but her voice is as low and husky as her form will allow.

"Nope," says Izma, with a somewhat forced flippancy. "We could give you a summary, though, if you've forgotten. One- you should have told us about the watch-tower. Two- you shouldn't have lied about our admittance to the hall. Three-"

"_Enough_," Batman interrupts. "You've made your point. I've made my own. As previously discussed, I'll announce my decision about further team-ups in three days time. Until then, you're grounded. No patrols, no missions."

Izma's feathers bristle. "But-!"

"No buts," said Pappani, firmly. "I advise you two to use the time to get ahead in your schoolwork. Or you could do some research into Cadmus Laboratories, if you prefer."

"Fine," Dick says, cutting off any further protests from his daemon. It's a fair enough punishment- he was honestly expecting a lot worse, maybe a full week off hero duty. And though he's loathe to admit it, after the beating he took today, a little rest __may __be warranted.

Besides...he's pretty intrigued about the whole Cadmus thing, and wouldn't mind the chance to dig a little deeper. "You found anything out?"

"Not yet," Batman says. He's already turned his attention back to the monitors. "Whoever was behind the company's true purpose covered their tracks well. I'm still unsure how they managed to build such a significant facility, or produce such extensive and advanced genetic engineering technology."

Dick just nods- what other response is there? What he saw down there today was pretty damn impressive- electricity generation, telepathy, cloning...and not just any cloning, but cloning of a __Kryptonian__. Dick's got to wonder how they even managed to get their hands on Superman's DNA in the first place- he knows for a fact that Clark has to shave using a mirror and __eye-beams__, so it's not like they just found a random strand of hair lying around a battle field or something.

But on the topic of the clone...

"I'm glad you didn't lock Superboy up," Dick says, a little tentatively. "It was a bit touch and go at the start, but he did good tonight."

By then Batman's attention is almost completely back on his research, but the man's daemon is still focused on them. "He's not to blame for the situation," she says. "He deserves a chance, as much as anybody."

Dick grins, and Izma makes a satisfied little chirping sound.

"Now," Pappani says. "It's late. Off to bed."

oOo

M'gann M'orzz has been on Earth for ten days, and she has never been happier.

She had been planning for this for so long, but never once in all that time had she allowed herself to truly imagine what it would be like once she arrived. Even when she had stowed herself away on her uncle's ship, she hadn't allowed herself, instead playing through episodes of __Hello Megan__on endless repeat in her head.

It hadn't been tricky getting onto the new bioship that the Martian government had presented to J'onn as a gift for his heroism and diplomacy. As a member of the Martian Manhunter's family, it was stored nearby, and M'gann had made excuses to go and speak with the ship on every possible occasion. They had built up a friendship of sorts, the bioship coming to care for her- and on the day that J'onn was set to return to Earth, the ship hadn't even hesitated at her request to enter. After long practice, M'gann had become very good at going into camouflage, so neither was it difficult to sneak onto the ship without being spotted.

By eyesight, at least. M'gann had known it would be very difficult to hide her mental signature, especially from someone as well trained as J'onn J'onzz. That is why, as soon as she'd discovered that he was returning to the planet to visit, M'gann had begun to stock-up on fla'rah.

Fla'rah was a drug produced by a number of Martian plants, most of them poisonous. Fla'rah itself could be quite dangerous, but in the correct dosage, it was an incredibly powerful drug, one which was capable of deadening a Martian's telepathic ability for extended periods of time. It was mainly used by doctors and medical professionals to calm patients before invasive or painful procedures, since no one wanted a telepath striking out in uncontrolled pain and fear during a delicate operation. Historically, however, it had occasionally been used by assassins and terrorists to slip by telepathic censors...

This reason, combined with the drug's near-lethal potency if administered incorrectly, meant that fla'rah was very difficult for a person to get a hold of. Especially if that person was still just a child, and a white one at that.

So M'gann had faked being sick, and injured, multiple times. And on each occasion, it had seemed as though she needed medical treatment. Each time, she had been terrified that someone would discover her deception- but when people looked into her mind and saw fear, they merely assumed she was afraid because of the pain. For once, her colour actually worked in her favour- the green doctors never wanted to look too closely at the mind of a white martian if they could help it.

So each time, they'd given her a small amount of fla'rah, to keep her calm. Each time, she had not ingested the drug, but pocketed and merely made sure she kept her mind calm and serene as they gave her other medications and treatments for ailments that did not exist.

When the day came, she first took a small dose, just enough to make her mind quieter, her mental signature fainter, but not so much that she couldn't reach out to the bioship. Once she was on board, she took the rest.

The sensation was- odd. Incredibly uncomfortable. Telepathic communication was as central to a Martian as sight, or hearing, or touch, and to have it completely cut off like that was horribly disquieting.

Nonetheless, she pressed through the discomfort. With her mental signature deadened, nobody could sense her presence, even when they searched. She'd found a little corner of the Bioship, and she'd crouched there in human shape, her body nearly invisible. She pressed her mind tiny and small, forcing it to stay blank when J'onn boarded. Lethargy, one of the many side-effects of the drug, had slowly stole over her mind and body like a heavy blanket, but M'gann had forced herself to stay fully-awake long enough to feel the ship take off, and leave Mar's orbit.

Then she had floated, somewhere between consciousness and wakefulness, the memories of __Hello Megan__episodes replaying endlessly in her head...

...and then, suddenly, Uncle J'onn's face was directly in front of her.

__Child___, _he had asked, his mental voice stern but caring, __What are you doing here?__

M'gann had blinked, slowly, having to pull herself out of the sticky goop that her mind had become under the fla'rah's influence. She had glanced down, confused, to see her body perfectly visible. Finally, she had managed to say out-loud, "_Wha_?"

The Martian Manhunter had merely stared down at her, patient and waiting.

She had pushed through the drug's effects, forcing herself to think. Usually, when Martians sleep or rest, their bodies remain in whatever shape they had upon losing consciousness- but the fla'rah must have made her lose her hold on the tricky, transparent state, turning her back into a simple opaque green, which was far more easily managed. Even with her mind was still deadened, it wouldn't have mattered- all it took J'onn was a single glance backwards, and he had noticed her, clear as day.

Her heart, which she had shaped to be so like a human's, had thumped in her chest. She had forced the fear down. She would have had to do this eventually, of course. She merely hoped that they had made it far from Mars before J'onn had discovered her- she did not want him to just turn around immediately, to never give her a chance to explain herself.

__I want to go to Earth___, _she had finally managed to say, gaining a grip on her weakened telepathic abilities.

__So you snuck away on my ship?__J'onn had asked, radiating disapproval.

She'd hung her head.__I'm sorry, I truly am, __she'd said.

__But I've wanted to go to Earth for so long, and this was the only chance I could get! I watch the television broadcasts all the time, I've heard of all the amazing things you do, and I want to do the same as well!__

He had sunk down on his own human-like legs, to look her in the eye.__M'gann, is it? You are only a child.__

__I'm forty-eight,__she protested. __That's nearly an adult. You weren't much older yourself when you first came to Earth!__

__I did not choose that. My arrival was an accident.__

__So?__she'd asked, her orange eyes bright and challenging. __You don't regret it, do you? You're one of the planet's greatest heroes! A founding member of the Justice League.__

__No...no, I do not regret it,__he had said, and then sighed. __But you misunderstand, child. Earth is not like Mars, and it is not like you see on the television. It will be very different. You will have difficulty adjusting, fitting in.__

She had licked her lips. This was it, the moment of truth, her chance to prove her desire. She'd focused. Her skin had changed, from the bright green that matched her uncle's, to a warm cream. Her orange eyes had faded into a softer brown. Freckles popped into existence on her cheeks. The biofabric she wore, which had previously taken on a form similar to the Martian Manhunter's uniform, with a red X across her torso and a blue cape draped around her shoulder, shifted into a school uniform she'd once seen on TV.

"I can adjust," she said, out loud, in English. "People can call me Megan, Megan Morse. I'm fluent in English, and I've learned some Japanese and Spanish, too. I know social cues, and I know about daemons. I know history, and geography, and about school, and food, and _everything_." She took a deep breath. "And I want to help."

J'onn had stared at her, and a moment later, M'gann had felt his mind press more firmly against her, asking for an invitation. She'd taken down her mental barriers, allowed him in; she'd felt his presence sweep through her thoughts, her memories, and he saw all of it; the loneliness, the discrimination, the boredom...and the joy that had come to her through the television, where she could escape to Earth and live vicariously through humans, so different and yet so similar...how she had followed her uncle's exploits over the long decades, seen Martian Manhunter, champion of Earth...how her passing interest in the sister planet had transformed into a deep, soul searing passion...

__You want this so badly? __Her uncle's mental-voice had sounded as stoic as always, but there was a degree of amazement in it.

__Yes.__

__Then I will speak to the Justice League and your family, __J'onn had promised. __I can make no guarantees, but I believe something can be arranged.__

And he __had __spoken to the League; first over the inter-com as they had traveled, and later on board an orbiting satellite once they arrived at the Earth's atmosphere. M'gann had not been permitted to enter the satellite, but instead had been instructed to wait aboard the bioship. As she waited for what seemed like __hours___, _the Martian girl had floated forwards and backwards restlessly, the telepathic ship humming reassurances in her mind. The wait had been worth it. Eventually her uncle had returned, with the Green Lantern John Stewart at his side. M'gann had fought to remain calm as she was introduced to her first human ever, doing her best to give a perfect handshake. Then Stewart had announced that she would be allowed to stay on Earth, and it was all she could do not to scream for joy.

That first night on Earth, J'onn had taken her to his New York apartment, and showed her the little guest room where she would be staying 'until further notice'. Then he had taken her out to supper, and it had been wonderful! It hadn't been a particularly fancy restaurant, but it had all been so new and different, and had reminded M'gann of so many television shows. And the food! That was something you could could only experience first hand. The flavours were so different from anything she'd tasted before!

The following days had been spent exploring the human world- or, at least the parts of it which could be found within New York City, which was quite a lot, all told. She had tried everything she could- visited the statue of liberty, taken a boat ride on the harbour, visited Central Park, stood at the very centre of Times Square and simply watched all the people walk past for a good hour. One night, there had even been fire-works! When her uncle was not busy with the League he accompanied her- and it was wonderful. Through their mental connection their each of their emotions were intensified, and M'gann could feel J'onn relishing her excitement and joy. She, in turn, could feel the deep love that he had grown for his adoptive planet, and his quiet pleasure at getting to share it with one of his own people.

This evening finds M'gann sitting at a small cafe, sipping an iced-chocolate through a straw, reading a book. (One of the first things she'd done upon arrival was seek out a library: though she had watched all manner of movies and TV shows, never once had she read a human book, and she relished the chance). Occasionally, she pauses, just to smile to herself. She's __here__. Sitting among humans. Drinking __iced-chocolate__.

When the Martian finishes her drink, she notices that it's getting late, and so makes her way to the cafe's washroom, letting herself into one of the stalls. This is not because she needs to use the toilet: instead, she used the privacy it afforded to alter her appearance in secret. She would be returning to her uncle's apartment, and J'onn had advised that it would be wise to try and resemble his own human appearance when they were together. "_Humans, like Martians_," he had explained, "_can have very strange notions about the importance of skin colour, and may think it odd if we do not look similar. _While M'gann of course preferred her 'proper' body, as she'd come to think of it- with reddish brown hair, and creamy skin, and a perky smile- she understood his concerns, and looked at it as an opportunity to practice her skills at mimicking humans. When she steps out of the washroom stall, her skin is a deep shade of brown, her now curly hair black, and her cheekbones are high and pronounced, to match her uncle's.

She leaves the cafe and made her way down the now familiar streets. It's strange, she thinks. In some ways, they are so similar Martian roads, filled with the same hustle and bustle. In other ways, they are very different. It's much more crowded, for one thing- Earth's population is so much __higher __than Mar's, and sometimes it's almost overwhelming to contemplate the sheer number of people surrounding her. And of course, it's not just the humans who filled the streets, but their daemons, which make them seem twice as busy as they actually were.

As she drifts down that train of thought, M'gann's fingers unconsciously twine around the plastic lanyard hanging from her neck. Daemons. That was the problem. She makes a perfect Megan Morse, she really does, from the looks, to the voice, to the smile. There is, however, one thing that no amount of shape-shifting or practice could mimic- and that's a graceful Dorcas gazelle walking by her side.

_Daemons_. M'gann can remember when she first learned about them. She had been fifteen, only a baby really, and somebody in her family- she couldn't remember who- had put on a transmission from Earth to watch. At the time, M'gann had only ever heard vague things about humans, and had never heard anything about their daemons- she had thought every human got their own little pets, and had been incredibly envious.

One of her siblings had explained that it wasn't like that at all. Humans, she'd been told, came not in a single part- but __two__. One part was generally the same for every human, but the other part was a shapeshifter, which turned into different animals at will. The two were linked, in a way beyond even the strongest of Martian telepathic bonds, and they never went anywhere without the other.

M'gann had been instantly enraptured. It would be like having a friend closer than any other- somebody who would always understand you, never think you strange, always be with you...

She glances down at the lanyard she wears- at the end is a fairly large plastic case, and inside is a butterfly, with orange and red wings. Not a real one, but a mechanical one, programmed to randomly flap its wings and wave its antennae. It's all a part of the illusion, the disguise. The butterfly helps her blend in on Earth- as long as she wears it, no human will wonder why she has no daemon and freak out.

It's quite nice, M'gann thinks. If she had a daemon, she wouldn't mind a butterfly. From afar they look very pretty, and up close they look rather interesting. As she understands it, they're needed for flowers and plants to grow, which is good. But honestly, she'd prefer something larger, with fur. Something to cuddle. Not __necessarily __a gazelle, like Marie Logan's, but well- a gazelle would be wonderful.

By then she's made it back to her uncle's apartment. She swipe's her guest keycard on the lobby doors, makes her way to the elevator and waits for one to arrive. She tries to turn her thoughts from daemons; she's long had to accept that it's a simple fact of her physiology that she can't have one. Much better to focus on the positives. She's on Earth!

M'gann's momentarily bad mood at dissipated completely by the time she arrives at her level.

When she enters the apartment, the girl finds that her uncle is already there, apparently having returned from whatever mission he had set out on that morning. He's wearing his human persona of John Jones, and smiles when she enters.

__You are back,__he says, touching her mind with his. She feels a sense of satisfaction radiating from him.

__I'm back! __She agrees.__I had a wonderful day. I went to this excellent museum...__

He raises a hand to stop her. __I shall want to hear all about it. But first, I have something to ask you.__

She doesn't reply in words, merely sends a wave of curiosity, a silent prompt for him to continue.

__Do you still wish to work as a hero?__

M'gann does. She truly does. She's been enjoying her time as a tourist, but was only ever half of the reason she wanted to come here. She wants to help people; and it's on Earth where she can help in a way she never could on Mars.__Y es.__

__It will be dangerous___._

She thinks of all the brave heroes she admires, both fictional and real. __I don't care.__

The Martian Manhunter nods. __Very well. Then I was wondering how you would feel about being assigned to a newly created team. One for young heroes, proteges of other Justice League members.__

"A team?" she asks, out loud.

"That's correct," he says, switching to vocal-speech along with her.

"With other young heroes?" she insists. "Like Robin, and Speedy?" He hesitates for the smallest of moments and says, "Not Speedy, but Robin, yes. And a few others."

A team. A real, honest to goodness team, with __teenagers__! It's like something right out of anime. M'gann doesn't even bother saying yes- she just wraps her uncle in the largest hug possible.

oOo

**Author's Note:** The idea of four-eye is not my own; I've borrowed it from Poetry's Animorphs/His Dark Materials cross-over, Daemorphing. Incidentally, that excellent series also uses insect daemon lanyards as a method to disguise aliens as humans. (It's a great series, and I recommend folks to check it out!)

Also, thank you to everyone to the support for my first chapter. It means a lot!


	3. Interim

**Chapter 3: Interim**

When Barry shows up a his house one Saturday morning during breakfast, unannounced, with a wide grin across his face, Wally immediately knows something is up. Unless there's an emergency, Barry usually calls before he drops by, so he must be planning _something_. (Wally is distinctly reminded of the time when, just a few months after the man had married Aunt Iris, he'd fully decided to try and embrace his new title of 'cool uncle' by springing a surprise trip to an amusement park on his ten-year-old nephew.)

"Hey, Uncle B," Lolace says from the counter-top, since Wally's busy engulfing his fourth bowl of cereal. "What's up?"

"The sky," Barry and his daemon chorus. Everyone else at the table- barring Superboy, who's steadily making his way through a plate of toast- groans.

"Har har," says Lolace. "I meant, what's going on?"

The detective taps the side of his nose in a conspiratory fashion. "That's a surprise!"

There's a sound _almost_, but not quite a growl, from under the table. It's Superboy's daemon, still in the form of a large white dog, which is her default shape. "I don't like surprises."

Lolace discreetly catches her uncle's eyes, shakes her head slightly and makes a small slashing motion across her neck. After the initial pain rampage, Superboy has mellowed out considerably, but after spending the past three days with him, Wally and Lolace have come to discover that he's _still_ one of the grumpiest people they know. Not that they blame him, or anything- the cloning gig has got to be tough, and he's adjusted to a whole lot of stuff. Nonetheless, it's best to try and keep the guy with super-strength calm.

Wally finishes slurping up the milk in his bowl and says, "Yeah, c'mon dude. Just tell us?"

(He's only asking to try and diffuse the situation with Superboy, not because he's burning with curiosity or anything. Oh no.)

"I don't know..." Barry says, unwilling, as he strokes the long ears of his hare daemon.

"Oh, go on, Barry," says Wally's Dad, Rudolph, who's been listening to the conversation absently while reading the paper. "They'll only keep pestering you if you don't."

The Flash gives a dramatic sigh. "Fine, but teenagers like you take the excitement out of everything. No, what I've come to tell you is this- Batman's agreed to let you kids have your own team, and I'm gonna take you to your new headquarters."

For that, Wally is more than willing to skip his fifth bowl of cereal for.

It doesn't take long to get out of the house. Both the boys need to brush their teeth and change out of their pyjamas into street clothes. Wally just throws on the first non-dirty clothes he can find; Superboy, meanwhile, just puts on one of the ten identical pairs of black Superman shirts and blue jeans that he had bought in bulk. Barry told Supes to pack up all his possessions, since he'd be living at this new headquarters, but honestly, those ten outfits (plus the tattered remains of the original white jumpsuit) was the entirety of the clone's possessions, so that didn't take long at all. Soon they are on the road, heading towards the nearest zeta-beam station, which is disguised as an underused tool-shed in a local park. Once they arrive, Barry plugs in the location into the computer, making the two teenagers stand outside to preserve the surprise.

(Could Superboy even be considered a teenager? Wally wonders. According to the notes he's quickly skimmed back in Cadmus, the guy's only 15 weeks old. He'll have to discuss it with Lolace later).

Wally is the one to go through first, carrying his raccoon daemon in his arms. He stepped through the Zeta-tube, feeling the odd sensation of the world seeming to dissolve around him; the two of them hang for a moment in a place of pure white, gravity-less, an odd prickling against their skin and fur; and then the world resolves around them once again, the fake, dingy interior of the tool-shed having been replaced with the open space of a large cave.

"Woah," Lolace breathes in his arms, and he let her down to the floor so she could explore. 'Cave' is an apt description, though it is nothing like the dark, cavernous Batcave that Wally has had the honour of visiting on a couple of occasions. The space is open and airy, allowing lots of light, and though the walls appeared to be hewn straight from the rock itself, said rock's grey colour is somehow warm and reassuring. One cavern's side is filled with large computer monitors and zeta-beam tubes, and on the other, hallways lead deeper into the facility. Wally itches to zoom forward and check them out- but there will be time for that later. First, he should greet the others. Robin and Batman are there already (with the former in Civvies, though the not in clothes he wears as an actual civilian), along with Red Tornado, and of course Flash and Superboy arrive just seconds after himself. Less than a minute after _that_, Aquaman and Kaldur arrive together, their skin perfectly dry despite beaming in straight from Atlantis. (Wally's read the science about how the zeta-tubes can teleport people while leaving gallons of sea water behind, but while he may be a science prodigy, that stuff is still beyond his knowledge level.)

The situation is explained. They're going to be a covert-ops team, handing situations where major Justice League members will draw too much attention. The cave they're standing in is part of Mount Justice, the old JL headquarters, abandoned when the location was leaked to villains. The place is now going to be their headquarters, and the whole thing is all very 'they know that we know that they know', like some sort of spy movie. Wally thinks it all sounds awesome- sure, he's not so keen on having a robotic baby sitter, but it's a small price to pay for a kick-ass base-of-operations and permission to work as a team with his friends.

Not just his friends, though- because apparently they have a new, surprise teammate. Just as Wally's mind is buzzing, trying to puzzle out who it could be, a girl walks into the room, and introduces herself as Miss Martian.

She's hot. _Smoking_. Awesome curves, nice hair, adorable smile- and man, Wally wouldn't be much of a _Star Trek_ fan if he didn't harbour a thing for green skinned alien chicks. And her daemon-

-well. Her daemon.

She doesn't have one, of course. Not that there's anything _wrong_ with that! In his (admittedly rather short) heroing career, he has already encountered dozens of folks who don't have daemons, at least not visible ones. Three of them are even on the Justice League, and while Wally has never been particularly close with either the Martian Manhunter or the Hawks, they seemed like cool folks. He's not an ignorant bigot, like those folks on the news who go on about them being 'soulless abominations'.

Still, it _does_ leave Lolace in a bit of an awkward position- the same one that his friends' daemons are coping with, even Superboy's, and she has like zero knowledge of social interaction. You can't touch noses or shake paws with a daemon who doesn't exist.

It's Genor who rallies the best. From his position in Kaldur's arms, he greets the Martian politely, stating both him and his human's names, along with their official title as Aqualad. "We are looking forward to working with you."

She beams at them. "M'gann M'orze," she says. "I know all about you! We get Earth TV on Mars, so I've seen all the amazing work you do! It will be an honour working with you all!"

Wally quickly zooms to her side, and says in a stage whisper. "I'll let you in on a little secret- that was allllll me. I just let them take the glory. Name's Wally- I trust you with my secret identity."

M'gann giggles, and Wally catches Lolace's eye. The raccoon nods approvingly; _nailed it!_

There rest of the group make their introductions, with M'gann even changing her shirt colour to match Superboy's, which seems to put the clone in a good mood (well, relatively). After that, Flash offers to give them all a tour of the new HQ. Wally's grinning ear-to-ear, and it's not _just _because the cave comes with an amazing kitchen and an a absolutely huge HD TV.

oOo

Roy Harper stares down at his work with considerable satisfaction.

The bedroom that he and his coyote daemon are in is dingy. The once-green carpet is now closer to a sickly grey, the plaster walls look like they could use a good paint job, the desk is over thirty years old and in shitty condition, and the windows are in need of some serious cleaning. The half-unpacked boxes piled around the place make it look even worse. Roy has spread out a blue duvet and nice set of pillows across the thread-bare bed, but even that hasn't done much to improve things.

None of that matters, however, when he looks at the new, bright red costume laid out on top of the duvet.

It's better than his old one. Much better. The lines are harder, more streamlined. The black in the place of yellow is both more serious and more subtle. He has more pockets to carry gear. There's more armour protecting his body, but he's gotten rid of the sleeves, to make it easier to move his arms. And there's no hat.

No other superhero has a hat- because they're freakin' useless. He knows a couple people have questioned Green Arrow's use of a hood, saying it blocks his peripheral vision, but at least it serves a purpose in concealing Ollie's identity, keeps him warm, and can be taken off if needed. The Speedy hat just looked ridiculously, and was threatening to fall off half the time.

(Roy remembers the impetus behind the hat in the first place; Ollie had included it as a training mechanism, to improve balance. After all, if you could run around without the thing falling off your head, your balance would be good enough that you wouldn't be falling off a building or some shit. Roy has long since proven to have impeccable balance, but somehow, the hat had always stuck around, a relic from the days when he really_had _been some green, under-trained side-kick.)

Yeah. The hat had been the first thing to go, when he'd designed his Red Arrow costume.

"So we're really going with Red Arrow?" asks Nihara as he continues to stare at the new outfit. "_Really_?"

"Yes, _really_." He crosses his arms and turns to look at her. "Why? What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing's _wrong_ with it," the coyote says. "It's just- a little too _similar_ to Green Arrow, don't you think?"

"_No_," he mutters, perhaps a bit too quickly. Nihara's bright yellow eyes watch him intently.

He sighs, and falls back onto the cheap wooden chair the room came with. "Look," he says. "We're not abandoning him or anything. We just need some space."

"_I'm not hanging around to play side-kick with you anymore," he'd yelled, when Ollie had appeared in his old bedroom's doorway, still in costume. He'd turned away, and practically thrown his clothes into his backpack. "I'm not hanging around to be lied to."_

Nihara's ears are flat against her head, her tail drooping, nearly between her hind legs. "I know," she says, looking down at the desk she's standing on. "I do know, but..."

"_So this is what you're doing, Roy?!" Ollie had shouted- he hardly ever shouted, but now he was angry, in a way he rarely was. "You're just going to run away from home? Like a little kid?"_

_The archer had been too furious to speak, but his daemon had not been. "Kids! Kids! Is that what you think of us as?"_

_The older man's red fox daemon had made a derisive yipping noise, which in a human would have been called a snort. "Well, when you act like this, I don't know why we shouldn't!"_

"_Well, _God_, when you put it that way, I don't know why you put up with stupid kids like us at all!" Nihara had snarled, her canines bared. "We're doing you a favour, really! You won't have to deal with your little side-kicks anymore!"_

_There had been a heavy silence, broken only by the daemons' heavy breathing and the sound of Roy furiously continuing to pack. Finally, Ollie had spoken. "That's not what I said."_

_Roy hadn't looked up. "You might as well have."_

_Seconds later, there had been the sound of the bedroom door slamming._

"...but it sort of feels like we are," Nihara finishes.

"We're _not_," Roy insists, sitting down heavily on the bed. He motions for his daemon to come over; she complies, jumping from the desk to his lap. She settles there, allowing her human to stroke her head. "We're not," he repeats in a quieter voice. "We're just going to show him- show _all _of them- that we're not to be babied. That we're as legitimate heroes as anyone else."

_He'd nearly finished packing- all his essential clothes were stached away, along with the equipment he kept at Ollie's place, and he'd grabbed all his legal documentation, too- when there was a knock on the door. Before either Roy or Nihara could snarl at Ollie to go away, the knocker simply invited themsevles in._

_It hadn't been Ollie at all, but Dinah and her nightingale, dressed in civvies._

"_So," she'd said. "You really are leaving."_

_Roy had straightened, shrugging the heavy bag onto his back. "You got a problem with that?"_

_The woman had given a small shrug. "I don't think it's the best decision ever, but I'm not going to stop you," she'd said. "You're eighteen now. A desire for freedom is expected, healthy even."_

_Both man and daemon had narrowed their eyes. "You're trying to use psychology on me," Roy had accused._

"_Maybe," Dinah had admitted, shooting him a bright grin which had managed to lighten the mood a little._

_They had stood there, face to face, for a moment- Roy wanting to leave, Dinah wanted to step closer, but neither quite prepared to act on their desires. Suddenly, Dinah's nightingale, Symph, had asked; "You have a place to stay?"_

_Half startled, Roy had said. "Yeah. Yeah."_

"_Where?" Symph had prodded, and then, "It better not just be one of your safe-houses, because those are __**not**__ meant to be lived in permanently."_

"_It's not," Nihara had assured them. "It's a place we found on Craig's List, ok?"_

_Dinah's brows had shot up. "A good place?"_

"_Decent," Roy had answered, not meeting her eyes._

"_Ollie's not gonna cut you off, Roy," she'd said. "He wants you to be safe, comfortable. You don't need to choose the cheapest place you can find."_

_That wasn't the only reason they'd chosen the apartment they had. The owner had responded quickly; it was right nearby the usual crime hot-spots; it was close to a zeta-tube; it promised privacy from the buildings' other tenants. But Roy would have been lying if he said the cost wasn't a factor. "I don't want to take his money."_

"_You're not 'taking' anything. Ollie __**chose**__ to be your legal guardian."_

"_I'm eighte-"_

"_And that doesn't mean that he's just going to abandon you."_

"_It's- it's not about that."_

_Dinah had stared at him. "What __**is**__ it about, then?"_

"_It's about making my own way."_

"_Listen to me," she had said, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Nobody makes it totally on their own. Nobody. Everyone needs some sort of support network._

"_Besides," she'd continued. "Heroing is expensive work. I know you have some money saved, but that's only going to last so long. Then what? Are you going to take up a part time job at a fast food place? Minimum wage isn't enough to support you, and the hours are even more erratic than Batman's."_

_Both boy and coyote had stood there, mute._

"_Don't cut us out, Roy," she'd said tenderly, then stepped back. "Now, come one. Let's raid the kitchen for canned food, make sure you don't starve."_

So, yeah, they're not abandoning anyone. They've been keeping Dinah informed through text messages, and they've ever had a call with Ollie- one which though tense, hadn't actually ended with either side shouting at each other, so that's something. And, yeah, he's allowed himself some more money from Ollie's bank account than he'd planned, though only enough to cover the essentials. They'll keep it like this as long as their solo, which shouldn't last more than a few months, a year tops- just long enough to convince everyone of their skills.

Roy sits there on the bed for some time, stroking his daemon's beautiful brown fur, before finally saying, "We're sticking with Red Arrow."

"OK," Nihara says, a little dubiously. "You gonna finish unpacking now?"

The archer laughs. "You kidding? I'm gonna try this shit out!"

"_Roy_."

The man laughs again, pulls an arrow from the quiver, and dangles it in front of the coyote's face. It's one of the new EMP ones that Ollie had developed just a couple weeks ago, and hardly used. "Come on," he taunts. "You know you want to."

Nihara humphs. "Fine."

After closing the curtains on the setting sun, Red Arrow suits up, feeling the satisfying weight of the quiver on his back. He's just pulling the protective black gloves onto his hands when there's a buzzing noise, indicating a new text on his phone.

Anxious to get out into the field, Roy is inclined to ignore it. Nihara, however, merely jumps up to the desk where the phone is lying, drags her nose against the touch screen, and reads the message. "It's from Kaldur," he says. "He wants to talk."

Despite himself, a smile spreads across Red Arrow's face. "Well," he says. "I guess we have time for that."

oOo

M'gann M'orze has been on Earth fifteen days, and she's a little, well...bored.

It feels a little like a betrayal, just thinking that. With all the time she spent fantasizing about the blue planet, it feels wrong that she could be bored, even for a moment.

This is a...transition period, and she knows it. Five days ago, J'onn took her to Mount Justice, which is to be her home, and the new team's headquarters, but it doesn't quite feel like either yet. Currently, there are only two other people who live in the Cave- Red Tornado and Superboy, and neither are particularly talkative.

Red Tornado is a robot, and doesn't quite understand a lot of 'organic' things, like hanging out and stuff. Superboy isn't a robot, but a clone of Superman, and apparently only just 'woke up' about a week or so ago. She's been told that he needs a little space, and has been doing her best to give it to him- but all he seems to do is sit in the closet he's claimed as his room, or watch TV, or go for walks. Sometimes he goes to the Cave's gym and pummels away at lead filled punching bags- she's watched him do so a couple of times.

She's used the gym and training facilities as well, though not very often. Another hero named Black Canary came by once, to start teaching her some Earth fighting techniques. The woman had explained that although M'gann has powers far beyond that of an average human, it will be vitally important that she understands other methods of fighting; not only will it give her new, potentially unexpected ways to attack opponents, it will also help her to anticipate the moves of others. It's something that the woman and her nightingale daemon are quite familiar with. While the two of them have a powerful sonic scream, their ability is only useful in certain situations, so they have to rely on physical combat just as much, if not more, than their vocal attacks. They had headed off to their training ring, where the veteran hero had begun to demonstrate basic stances and fighting moves.

"Would you like to try using your real form?" Black Canary had asked, after presenting a simple series of kicks and punches.

"No, no, this is fine," Megan had insisted, trying to mimic the initial foot positioning the woman had shown.

"Are you sure?" the woman had said. "I know the Martian body is quite a bit stronger than the human one, and in a fight you should take every advantage you can get."

Megan had almost gone invisible out of embarrassment. "No no, this is fine," she had insisted. "I'm a shape shifter. I need to practice in all sorts of shapes. We can start with this one."

The blonde woman had narrowed her eyes, but her daemon was willing to let the subject drop. "We know human bodies better anyway," the nightingale had said as he soared above their heads. "M'gann, your right arm is stretched out too much, an enemy could easily grab hold of it, use it to throw you off balance."

They had worked together for over three hours- three _exhausting_ hours. M'gann has had practically zero physical fighting experience, and had found it far more demanding than she had expected- but also far more exhilarating. Not to mention, it had been wonderful getting to really spend time with another person. Black Canary was a wonderful teacher; kind-hearted, patient, funny. M'gann would have _loved_ to mind link with her.

But J'onn had warned her that humans considered such things rude, and M'gann didn't think the two of them were close enough for it to be permissible yet. They hadn't even spent a full day together, and Black Canary is her superior and teacher- even on Mars, it would be considered strange to make too strong or sudden a connection.

Another day her uncle had stopped by to catch up. They had spoken for some time, and meditated together for some hours more- it was a wonderful relief to feel the touch of another mind on her's. Unfortunately, he was even more busy with the Justice League than Black Canary, and the visit had been all too brief.

M'gann had found ways to keep herself busy. She'd gone out into the water-front city that Mount Justice was situated by. It was much smaller than New York City, and it reminded her strongly of Aversbee from _Hello Megan!_. She'd visited the various shops, and using the allowance she'd been granted, bought a number of things to decorate her new room. A lot of the things she loved were apparently too old for the shops to carry merchandise for them, but she'd gotten posters for _Disney_ and _Sailor Moon_, and found an adorable deer plushie to put on her bed. She'd tried her hand at Earth cooking, which wasn't all that different from Martian cooking, although the ingredients often had very different preparation times. She wasn't very good; not only had she managed to burn her first two meals, she'd put in too much baking powder in the brownies, and they'd risen to almost fill the entire oven, and she's pretty sure that she managed to over-spice the pasta she made. Superboy, at least, hadn't commented, and eaten it all without complaint, even thanking her for her hard work.

So it's not like she doesn't have things to do. She just wishes there were more.

_That will be changing soon_, she tells herself, as she stands in front of her room's mirror and practices mimicking various dresses she's seen on TV.

Aqualad is wrapping up some affairs in Atlantis, but once they are finished with, he'll be moving into his own quarters, and there will be one more person in the Cave. According to Red Tornado, Batman is certain that they will be assigned a mission shortly. Not to mention, once September hits, she's going to be starting at the local school, which will be absolutely wonderful! It'll mean classmates, and teachers, and clubs- oh, maybe even a cheer-leading squad!

Soon. Soon, she will have friends.

oOo

When Kaldur'ahm awakes, he is momentarily confused to find himself not in an Atlantean sleeping pod, but on the flat, soft surface of a terran bed. Memories return swiftly however, and he realizes that he is in his new quarters at Mount Justice. He has been living at the Cave for less than a week, and it is still a new experience- his body still expects to wake up under water.

He slips off the single thin blanket he sleeps under- rarely being bothered by the cold, Kaldur finds the pressure of duvets suffocating- and comes to stand, barefoot, on the bedroom floor. The young man stretches, raising his arms high, then reaching down to his toes. Then he makes his way to the bureau, and dresses in the tight-fitting red shirt and black pants of his Aqualad uniform. Once clothed, he finally turns towards the medium sized tank that sits alongside the room's far wall.

Overall, his quarters are quite bare, filled only with the default furnishing it came equipped with upon his arrival, the only additions being a small number of personal belongings. The sparcity can no doubt be in part attributed to the short period of time he has been living there, but it is also simply his personality. Kaldur has never seen a great need to personalize or decorate- 'Spartan', he believes the English term is. A fitting description, he muses, as Sparta had been a Greek nation, had Atlantis too had once been.

One major alteration had been made to the room, however, and that is the installation of a clear glass water tank.

Such tanks can easily be bought throughout the surface world, both for daemons and pet fish. Fish daemons are quite rare in surface dwellers, Kaldur knows- while the vast majority of Atlantean peoples' daemons settles as fish, they're found in scarcely five percent of terrans', though the percentage of daemons which are at least semi-aquatic is a fair bit higher. Nonetheless, enough people require aquariums for their daemons to stay for tank production to be a thriving industry, and modern technology means that such people are no longer tethered to an actual body of water. It is incredibly useful and effective arrangement, but nonetheless, it still feels a little strange to have Genor spend the night even a few feet away from him. (Technically, of course, the sea turtle does not need to stay underwater when he sleeps, being an air breather, and could easily share Kaldur's bed. The turtle finds this arrangement more comfortable, however, and Kaldur does not begrudge him the luxury.)

Genor's tank is not small, but neither is it particularly large, with the sea-turtle filling nearly a third of it. The daemon floats at the top, watching the human with a keen eye, clearly eager for a chance to stretch his fins.

"Good morning," Kaldur greets in Atlantean, as he reaches into the tank and grabs his daemon by the shell.

"Good morning," Genor replies in kind as he is lifted from the tank. Kaldur holds him over the water for several long seconds, letting water drip off his shell- no good trailing puddles throughout the place- before setting off, pausing only to grab a towel off a hook near the door.

Carrying his daemon under one am and his towel under the other, Kaldur leaves his room and moves through the Cave's silent corridors. It seems that no one else- not even Red Tornado- is awake yet. Though the Atlantean has, by now, adjusted to the region's time-zone, he is still an early riser. It is a habit which was ingrained in him during his brief period of military service, and he's always appreciated the private time afforded him during the early twilight hours.

Making their way through the corridors, man and daemon eventually come to the deep pool of water found in one of the Cave's atrium. Kaldur lays the towel on the floor, drops the sea-turtle daemon into the water, then dives in after him.

The salty water through his gills feels _magnificent_.

The two hang there for a moment, simply savouring the feeling of cool water against their skin and scales. Then, in unison, the two dive deeper and move toward the large, submerged metal doors which cuts the inner dock off from the rest of the harbour. As they approach some unseen security device scans them, notes their level of clearance, and triggers the doors to open just wide enough to admit them.

It is barely dawn; the light is dim and grey, and when filtered through the choppy surface, it casts eerie, dancing shadows. Used to such light and unperturbed by it, they paddle steadily into the cooler water of the open ocean.

Aqualad's duties have lead him to travel far throughout the world's oceans and seas, but never before now have Kaldur and Genor had the opportunity to explore Happy Harbour and the surrounding coasts. Compared to some of the places they've seen- the great reefs of Australia, the ice-flows of the arctic, the kelp forests of the polar coasts- it's nothing particularly special. However, both the water and the wildlife of the region are relatively healthy, and there's something calming about the rocky area. It's quiet, peaceful. The two spend a few minutes simply watching a shimmering school of fish swim past.

Finally, however, the fish swim off, and Kaldur knows he cannot follow.

"So," Genor eventually says. "Leader."

"Yes," agrees Kaldur. "It's a great honour."

The sea turtle floats closer to his human's face. "A great responsibility as well."

"I am aware." With a kick of a leg, he turns, and dives towards the rocky floor. Even without four eye, Kaldur can sense his daemon following.

"Do you wish to talk about it?" the turtle calls.

"There's nothing to speak about," Kaldur replies as he swims past a rock overflowing with barnacles. "The Team chose me as leader, and I agreed."

He agreed because they were in dire need of one, and no one else were prepared for the task. The Team took an embarrassingly long time to defeat a single robot, air powers or no. But even the Mister Twister incident was nothing compared to Santa Prisca last night, and Kaldur is well-aware that his newly instated leadership just barely managed to salvage the operation, and their lives.

Their lives. It's his duty to protect them now.

Of course, since taking the mantel of Aqualad, it had been his duty to protect many lives the world over. Command, however, is another thing entirely.

Aqualad recalls his first field commander, back when he was just a twelve-year-old cadet in the Atlantean military. She had been an older woman with an internal daemon and parrot fish features, though none of their docile temperament. Her tongue had been sharp, and she had not suffered fools lightly; the entire platoon had lived in fear and awe of her.

They had been on a scouting mission in deep waters. It was intended to be purely non combat, a way to improve the recruits stealth skills- they were merely trying to verify reports of an unregistered submarine in the area, and if possible, identify it's source.

Ultimately, however, it was not submarines they should have been watching for, but squid.

Colossal squid are deep sea creatures, rarely sighted even by Atlanteans, which spend their live hunting fish and other squids. For some reason, however, one squid had decided come into relatively shallow waters, and instead it's attention towards a group of five Atlanteans instead. (Later, their would be speculation of disease having infected the creature's mind, to make it act so atypically).

The squid had been huge, six times the size of any human, with eyes the size of a person's head, eight long arms covered sharp hooks and powerful suckers, and a huge beak capable of crushing bones- and it had come out of depths, taking Kaldur's party completely unawares.

It had been chaos. At that stage in their training, everyone's combat skills were still weak and underdeveloped- but what little they did have had been focused on Atlantean opponents, not animal ones. Wild shots were fired, but they seemed to do little but irritate the massive creature. Spears were knocked aside. People were caught in the grasp of tentacles, screaming as the hooks dug into their flesh, before being flung aside. Kaldur himself just barely managed to dodge the squid's massive maw, Genor coming to his side in the shape of a dolphin to push him out of the way at the last second.

Seeing the dolphin, the daemon of one of Kaldur's comrades- he can no longer recall which one- got it into their head to transform into the natural predator of the colossal squid: a sperm whale.

In theory, this tactic would have been sound, as no shape was better equipped to take down the animal. In reality, it had been _disastrous_ when the tiny cuttlefish daemon had suddenly swelled to over one hundred and fifty times it's original size.

Everyone around it, human, daemon and squid alike, had been blown back by the sudden wave of pressure caused by the displaced water. Kaldur hadn't been able to tell exactly what happened in the ensuring chaos, but he knew this; someone, somehow, had managed to bump directly into the side of the massive daemon, and the shock from this contact, accidental or not, had caused the sperm whale to convulse in both panic and pain. Several of the group, already thrown into disarray by the squid's appearance and the sperm whale transformation, were scattered even further by the flails of its massive tail. Kaldur himself had been flung out into the open ocean, dangerously far away from Genor. Another cadet was less lucky, and tossed directly towards the tentacles of the now _very angry _colossal squid.

That's when their commander had moved into action.

With a powerful kick of her fish-like tail, the soldier had charged directly at the squid from below, trident gripped in her hands, screaming like an enraged siren. Tattoos on her body had glowed a bright purple, and a funnel of glowing water had surged around her as she swam right into the creature's furious maw.

The next few minutes had been filled with nothing but a horrible screeching, the thrashing of water, and thick billows of choking blood. When it finally settled, and Kaldur and the other cadets had regained their bearings, they found the squid's body, blood still billowing from it's side, sinking slowly to the bottom of the sea. The commander had floated there- not dead, but unconscious, and heavily wounded. The cadets had hauled her all the way back to the nearest military post, and turned her over for immediate medical treatment. They discovered later that she had survived, just barely, though her entire body would forever be scarred, and half her tail-fin had been lost.

His commander's actions had stuck with Kaldur, all these years. That woman had seen one of her charges in danger- and she had plunged in, without hesitation, to save their life, even at the risk of sacrificing her own.

That was his duty, now.

"Kαλδυρ'αμ?" Genor asks, when the man goes on too long without speaking.

Kaldur shakes his head, bringing himself back to the present. "My apologies," he says. "I was lost in thought."

The sea-turtle merely hums in agreement.

They swim on for some time. Eventually, Kaldur asks, "What do you think Spe- Red Arrow will think of our new position?"

"Nothing good, I suspect," Genor says, as they pass underneath the shadow of a fishing boat. Kaldur sighs; his daemon is probably right. Roy is still under the opinion that the Team is nothing but a ploy by the Justice League to keep their proteges busy and distracted, and after their last attempt to convince the young man to join, the archer has ceased communication with them almost entirely. This stings, almost more than Kaldur cares to admit, and he still wishes he could have the other man's opinion on the matter.

"And Tula?"

"Tula will be supportive, I'm sure. Proud. Garth as well," Genor adds, almost as an afterthought. Kaldur starts a little- he hadn't even considered the opinion of his best friend. But then, surely he had just taken his closest confidant's support as a given?

He suppresses another sigh. A week is the longest he has ever been outside of Atlantis for, and already, he finds himself missing his friends beneath the water.

He shakes his head. It is silly of him to succumb to home-sickness, especially after so long hoping for this kind of opportunity. And while he will, of course, miss the company of Tula and Garth, he has friends on the surface as well- and _not_ just Roy Harper.

**Author's Note:**

_Kαλδυρ'αμ_- According to the YJ wiki, this is the Atlantean spelling of Kaldur'ahm's name, so I felt I would include it.

Thank you again for everyone's support. It's very encouraging!


End file.
